At present, with the development of Short Message Service (SMS) techniques, a variety of short message VASs emerge endlessly. There are two systems for implementing short message VASs in the related art. One is shown in FIG. 1, including a terminal 101, a Short Message Service centre (SMS centre) 102 and multiple application servers 103. The application servers 103 are established after a Service Provider (SP) who wants to develop short message VASs acquires service numbers from an operator, and each of the application servers 103 corresponds to one or more service numbers and connects with networks of one or more operators. After a terminal sends a short message of which the recipient number is a service number to the SMS centre 102, the SMS centre 102 forwards the short message to an application server corresponding to the recipient number. The application server determines a service processing logic according to the short message received by the application server and implements service processing.
The other system for implementing short message VASs in the related art is shown in FIG. 2, including a terminal 101, an SMS centre 102, an Internet Short Message Gateway (ISMG) 201, and multiple application servers 103. The ISMG 201 is configured to forward messages between the SMS centre 102 and application servers 103 and to implement collection of charging information, service management and network management, etc.
An illustrative example for a specific short message VAS is described to illustrate the related art. For example, a certain interactive television program provides a service of short message participation for users. And the application server corresponding to the service corresponds to such three numbers as 96666, 86666, and 56666 and each of the numbers corresponds to a different operator, i.e., operator 1, operator 2 and operator 3. When a user subscribing with operator 1 would like to participate in the service, he/she should know the number corresponding to the service, namely 96666, and edit a short message. Upon editing the short message, the user will use a terminal to send the short message of which the recipient number is 96666 to an SMS centre. Upon receiving the short message, the SMS centre sends information to the application server corresponding to the service number 96666 directly or sends information to the application server corresponding to the service number 96666 through an ISMG. The application server determines a service processing logic corresponding to the short message received by the application server and implements the service processing.
Due to the diversification of the existing short message VASs, different short message VASs correspond to different service numbers. As a result, if a user wants to participate in multiple short message VASs, he/she should know these service numbers corresponding to such multiple short message VASs. Since such a service number is a group of numbers without image, the difficulty of remembering the service number increases. A user needs to know every service number of each short message VAS that he/she participated in; therefore the easy-to-use quality and attraction of the short message VAS decrease.
Additionally, a short message VAS provider is allowed to develop a short message VAS after acquiring a service number from an operator. However, as there are limited service number resources, a great number of institutions or enterprises can not get service numbers, which limits the development and coverage of the short message VAS.